The life and times of Lafayette Ryder

Bright lights, overly bleached sheets, and the overwhelming smell of antiseptic; not another fucking hospital.

I blink at the blinding florescent light and sit up. Resting in the provided chairs near my bed are Dulcie and Twilight, they both look exhausted but still manage to rush over and hug me as soon as I move.

“Are you Ok daddy?”

“I’m so happy you’re awake Lafayette!”

I embrace them both and scoot back against the wall.

“What the hell happened?” I ask groggily.

“Uh…” Twilight mutters.

“You… you got shot.” Dulcie explains.

“Ok, by who?”

“Well…” Twilight starts.

“By Mayor Neil.” Another voice finishes. I look up to see Chuck Towery be wheeled in by Nurse Redheart. “Thank you nurse.” he says as the white mare leaves. “Anyway,” he looks back to us, “you discovered that he was the one who molested Jenny. We found him in his house with another little girl and when you threatened to have him hung he pulled a gun and shot us both.”

“What?” Twilight asks in shock.

“Who was molested?” Dulcie wonders aloud.

“What’s with them?” Chuck questions my family’s forgetfulness.

“They don’t remember any of it; you and I are the only ones who still do.” I inform him.

“Oh yeah, the mind eraser thing.”

“So what happened to Fish?” I ask, getting back on track.

“You fired back when he shot at you…you killed him.”

“…”

“Mr. Ryder?”

“What?” I say quietly.

“I can tell that you could use some privacy, if you’d be kind enough to make me forget this whole mess too I’d get out of your hair.” He offers.

“Certainly.” I say with a wave of my hand. Chuck stares blankly at me for a moment and hiccups.

“Excuse me sir, my mind’s slippin’ a bit, what was I doin’ here?” he asks innocently.

“Leaving.”

“Oh, right.” Chuck wheels himself back out the door and down the hall.

“So what happened?” Twi asks.

“Nothing.’ I wave my hand and both women stare at me intensly for a moment.

“Why are we in the hospital?” Dulcie asks.

“What happened to you?” Twilight asks.

“Pissed of a bull and he charged me.” I lie. “Now let’s go, I still have shit to do in Haven.” I say as I stand up and head to the bathroom to change back into my normal clothes.

Twenty two and a half minutes later I’m back in the human city with both my daughter and my wife tailing me as I make my way to the Picken ranch. Once there I introduce Twi and Dulcie to frank, the owner and operator of the ranch, and explain a few things to them, mostly Twi, before heading inside.

“You know that humans are omnivores, meat eaters.” I say as we near the first barn.

“Yes, I found that out when you first came here.” Twilight reminds me.

“Ok, do you know where we get our meat?” I ask.

“I assume you hunt-”

“WRONG!” I shout as I fling the barn doors wide open revealing the two dozen cows within. “We can’t hunt here for three major reasons; there just wouldn’t be enough to feed us all, we don’t have enough capable hunters, and things in this world have the pesky quality of sentience and we don’t want to eat anything that can swear at us as we kill it. Instead we breed these big, dumb, meaty bovine to slaughter and eat.”

“Whoa, they don’t look anything like Equestrian cows.” Twilight notes as she trots up to one of the dozing dairy makers.

“Yep, they don’t’ act, think, or speak like your cows either. Pretty much all they do is eat, sleep, breed, and give us meat and milk. We treat them well, up until the point when we kill ’em anyway, and the give us a good deal in return; milk, cheese, butter, yogurt, beef, and even fertilizer. We use every bit of them; we even use their waste and unusable parts in our gardens to help our plants grow.”

“Wow. So why are we here again?”

“We need more cows for us and the dragons need more cows for them so-” I clap my hands and fifty new calves pop into existence. “They ya go Frank, you just holler if you need anymore.” Frank, his son, and a few of his hired hands move to wrangle the new cattle in as we leave the barn. “Now, for the biggins.” I clap my hands again and a streak of lightning sails down from a small white cloud and hits the ground with a sonic boom loud enough to force Twi and Dulcie to cover their ears.

From the scorched splotch of earth a vine spouts and grows upward at an unbelievable pace. Every few seconds it grows another foot, with every five feet of vertical growth a patch of leaves appears, and in every leaf patch a small lamb spawns and starts to grow fat.

“I changed my mind,” I tell the mare and the woman at my side, “a Borometz will do even better than cows, the dragons can feast on the lamb’s plentiful flesh and we can harvest their thick wool.”

“That. Is. Amazing.” Twilight tells me as she stares in awe at the lambs that are now descending down the plant’s stalk, repelling with their own vine-like umbilical cords, to the ground below where they graze and grow even fatter.

“I thought that you’d like it.” I tell her as we turn to leave. By the time we get to the truck the lambs have grown into five ton sheep and are roaming the field they were planted in; I’m sure the dragons will enjoy that little present.

Before we leave haven I instruct a few farmers to shear the woolen creatures and to feed them as many bales of hay as they can. I create a never-ending stock pile of the brown feed and bid good bye to the farmers. We head home and get back to the library in just under an hour.

Dulcie stays over for dinner but leaves for the castle and her marefriend soon after, the boys eat and go to their room as per their usual schedule, Leeroy pecks my on the cheek and calls me Mama just like always, and then we all go to bed. Leeroy and the boys all fall soundly asleep as soon as they lie down but Twi and I stay up for a while longer, her reading a new romance novel and I thinking about the day’s events. After an hour Twilight turns the lights out and falls asleep but I remain awake. When I hear my wife’s soft, rhythmic breathing and slight snore I know that she’s deep asleep and I stop holding back.

I weep till my eyes are red and my throat is sore, I bite my knuckles till the bleed and then I dig my thumbs into my eyes just as I did so long ago when Jeffery tricked me into believing my son was dead. But it’s different now, Jeff’s gone. I did this, I killed Fish, I killed my best friend.

I cry myself asleep and then suffer through one horrendous dream after another about my oldest friends fate.

When Celestia’s sun rises and my family wakes I lie in bed still, the last thing I want to do at the moment is get up, no, the last thing I want to do is live with the fact that I just killed Fish and that now no one even remembers him. So I just stay in bed all morning and into the afternoon, before I know it Twilight’s slipping back under the covers next to me for bed. I sleep again and again I’m tormented by my deeds.

I consider making myself forget about Fish but I can’t bring myself to do it, I can’t let his memory die completely, I just can’t.

But I can’t live with my actions either.